Hilvan homestay South Eastern Anatolia

We were recommended a homestay in a small Kurdish village by some fellow kiwi travellers. The village, Yuvacali is based on the outskirts of Hilvan, a small town in South Eastern Anatolia. Life is still very traditional here and most families are very poor living on less than 1 dollar a day. Everything is made from scratch and the family we stayed with were self suffıcient living off their own produce. The mother of the family, Pero was incredibly hard working as most of the manual labour is 'womens work.' This included milking the sheep, making cheese and yoghurt, making the bread each day, cooking all the meals and sewing all of the household cushions bedding etc.

The first day we arrived we had a delicious lunch with the family including fried vegetables (potatoes green peppers etc.) with naan (a flat bread that all the women make here). İt was delicious although they kept insisting that we eat more as they were adamant we needed to put on weight! We realised we definitely weren't going to go hungry here. After lunch we went out for a walk with Halil, the father of the family. He took us to the local Nomads where we stayed for some 'chai' (tea). It was so interesting having an insight into the nomads unique way of life. They were so hospitable to us even though they spoke no English and our Kurdish was pretty poor!

Later in the day we witnessed the milking of the family's sheep. This is something that only the women do so Christina had a go but found it much harder than it looked! Pero was super efficient and had all sheep milked within a few minutes. That evening we dined on chicken over a bed of rice made in chicken stock. The family had killed a chicken especially for us as this is very expensive and they would rarely eat meat at home. We think this is likely to have been the most organic and free range chicken we have ever eaten!

The following morning Christina was instructed to be up early and ready for action by 7am as that is when the bread gets made. As this is again strictly womens work, Will was allowed a morning of leisure. The flat bread is rolled out paper thin and was then cooked on a dome shaped pan over an open fire made by burning hay. Pero was very efficient and you could tell that she had many years experience with this. Christina gave this a go as well but Pero soon took over as we would have been waiting a long time for breakfast going at Christina's speed! The breakfast that followed was spectacular including naan, yoghurt and a feta type cheese (both made from the sheeps milk), honey, cucumber and tomato and a delicious home made chilli paste and of course the ubiquitous chai (tea). We were well set up for the day after this meal and went for another walk wıth Halil after breakfast to some ancient ruins. As with most places ın Turkey, the village is surrounded by ancient ruins most of which have not yet been excavated. We had a look around for artifacts and came across several pieces of pottery etc. which we thought Te Papa may be very interested in! Very bizarre. We left the family just before lunch and got on a minibus heading for Urfa an hour away. All in all a unique experience and fascinating personal insight into how local people live.

Nemrut Dagi

From Gazientep we took a bus to Kahta to organise getting up to Nemrut Dagi to see the 'giant heads' at the top of the mountain. The history behind the statues is that a King built a big statue of himself and various gods up there around 60BC. The statues were once seated, but the heads of the statues were at some stage removed from their bodies, and so are now scattered throughout the site.

Our initial plan was to stay at the little town named Karadut which is on the road up the Nemrut Dagi mountain. The supposedly ideal time to see the ancient 'giant heads' is at sunrise so we thought it would pay to be handy to the top to extend our sleeping opportunities. Unfortunately it turned out that the buses to Karadut were not running on the day we arrived so we ended up staying in a town named Narince a bit further away. We were offered dinner, a place to sleep, transport up to the top of the mountain for sunrise and breakfast the following morning from a local family. The father, Mehmet owned the local pide (bread) shop and so was used to early starts with the bakery.

The following morning we got up for the 3.30am start to the top of the mountain. Mehmet started to drive us up the road to the summit. The road got steadily more steep the further we went and unfortunately was too much for his little car which stopped dead in its tracks about half way up. All that Mehmet said in his stilted English was "problem." He then proceeded to try and fix the issue by fiddling around with various fuses, pulling them out and putting them back in again. We were not filled with confidence at Mehmet's mechanic skills. Eventually we came to the conclusion that the car was not going to make it to the top however by a stroke of luck Mehmet knew the driver of the local school minibus and in true Turkish hospitality he loaned the keys to Mehmet to get us to the top for sunrise.

Surprisingly, after all of the drama we still managed to just make it up in time for sunrise and managed to get a few good shots at the top. There was still snow at the top of the mountain and it was windy and FREEZING cold so needless to say we didn't muck around too much up there. On the way back down, the driver of the school bus kindly towed Mehmet's car back to the town.

Turkey - Kayaking the Mediterranean

We descended into the seaside town of Kas from the plain 550m above, it was an impressıve view down from the cliffs to the apartment buildings and no less than three mosques framing the Mediterranean marina.

The next day we headed out for a couple of days kayakıng along to Ucagız. The benefit of paddlıng was a) we didnt have to walk and b) we could paddle over sunken ruins. Mike and Karen of Amber Travel helped sort out a double kayak for us and a single for James a Scot who we had been walkıng wıth for a few days.

On the first day we paddled 25km round to Aperlae where there were a heap of old tombs and ruins. The followıng day we kayaked an extra 15km around to Ucagız and Will managed to practice hıs eskimo rolls at a secluded island along the way. That evenıng we headed back to Kas.

Turkey - The Lycian Way

We have been walkıng the Lycıan Way - a 500km walk along the South West coast of Turkey.

We walked from Fethiye to Kas - a distance of around 140km ın 11 days. The weather has been perfect wıth sun every day and highs ın the early 20s.

We have come across heaps of ruins in places that can only be reached by foot. Since it is the low season here we have had the trail to ourselves the majority of the time.

The locals have been so friendly and hospitable and we have had some fantastic meals in the small villages.

Wildlife has been abundant with sightings of numerous tortoises lizards frogs and even the odd snake!

Most of the path has hugged the coastline and so we have been treated to amazing views over the coast to the turqouise water of the Mediterranean below.